I think you’re right and I like your take. I know in my own case that my politics is the inevitable conclusion of my metaphysics. I cannot put any value into abstract objects and universals when I cannot believe in them. But I disagree with Dugin that these valuations will lead us to a post-human world, where we will abandon the notions of “humanity” itself. And I doubt that nominalism is a prevalent as he claims.

Aren’t you a sight for sore eyes, friend.

Yeah I think abstract objects and universals are inescapable features of speech.

There is a Russian political philosopher known as “Putin’s brain”, Alexander Dugin, who claims that the advent of nominalism is the precursor to liberalism, and thus represents the inherent danger of The West. He claims that it serves to destroy notions such as community and family and has led to the worst kind of individualism. So I wonder if nominalism has had such an effect on the one hand, and if it is indeed a strictly western notion in the other.

Sam Harris argues that in the chain of causation the buck does not stop and our "free will" cannot interrupt the determinist chain. There is no free will at any particular point. What do people think?

If every state is determined by its anterior state, It seems to me that a determinist “chain of causation” could not exist since there is no anterior state to determine the initial state in the chain. Either the chain is infinite or there was a first cause.

To avoid this and other troubling notions, such as discrete states of the universe, we can say that the “anterior state” is merely a retroactive description of the one state, namely, the universe, and as such has no deterministic powers upon any other state.

I'm sure you realize stones don't have any weight in outer space. By your account, the nominalist is pretty confused.

How is he confused? He hasn't evoked "weight", so no property called "weight" has suddenly vanished. The stone has not changed. Instead the nominalist can focus on what has changed and come closer to accuracy in describing states of affairs.

When the nominalist weighs a stone he understands he’s measuring the stone, not something called “weight”. This can be observed: he is indeed putting the stone on the scale. Nothing called “weight” even needs to be postulated.

The realist, on the other hand, implies that the stone possesses something called “weight”. So now we have two substances, the stone and weight. Yet there is only stone on the scale.

So why must we evoke two or more substances when there appears only one?

If so, replace A with "boiling point" and B with "the temperature at which something boils" and you get "the boiling point (a property) exists"

The liquid exists, the atmospheric conditions exist, but the boiling point is just a value produced by a human mind, as is temperature. You’re just describing the state of the liquid.

That light being within a certin range

That light exists, yes, and it appears red, sure, but red is just a description of the light.

States of affairs are truth-makers. So a proposition in your sense is not a state of affairs. Yes, I don’t want to wade into these things, personally.

The fact that I use an object pronoun ought not to suggest I believe “us” exists as an object.

It would probably bring clarity if you explained what you think a proposition is.

It depends on the sense in which you use it. If it is a “state of affairs”, then it is a statement. Do you mean it in another sense?

A proposition is a state of affairs. Propositions transcend time and space by definition. It's easy to demonstrate that they can't be the product of any particular mind, and if they're products of mind at all, it would be in a Kantian sense. An individual human may give expression to a proposition by uttering a sentence, but in that act, the only thing with spacial and temporal extension is the marks or sounds of the utterance.

But even if you reject the above and opt for some sort of hard behaviorism, you've still given an abstract foundation to descriptions: us.

Propositions do not transcend space and time. I’ve quoted your propositions right here, the product of a particular mind. If it’s easy to demonstrate that a proposition transcends space and time perhaps you might entertain us by doing so.

If so, then what is the explanation for all of us largely attributing redness to the same things? It sounds as though there is something in common between all the things we describe with the adjective "red" or to which we attribute "redness". What is that thing in common?

For apples and other fruits it’s Anthocyanins. For blood it’s Heme. The color is similar because the light bouncing off of these compounds is similar and our biology is similar. They appear red, they can be described as red, but there isn’t something called “red” in Anthocyanins and Heme. We’ve looked.

Yes we can, what?

Redness is the property of reflecting light of wavelengths around 625-740nm and absorbing other frequencies. That's something in the world is it not?

Forget universals. Do you believe properties exist? Do things have properties?

No, things do not possess other things called “properties”. Properties are basically values we put into formulas. The boiling point, for instance, is the temperature at which something boils. There is something about the liquid that causes it to boil at a certain temperature, but there is nothing called “boiling point” in liquid.

I believe abstract concepts and universals are necessary for language. I just can’t find them outside of it.

Using a suffix to turn an adjective such as “red” into the noun “redness” is purely an exercise of the mind, not an observation of something in the world. It allows you to equivocate between using an adjective on one hand, and a noun on the other, but they both nonetheless serve to describe the same thing: the apple. We cannot point to or quantify something called “redness”; we can only point to or quantify things that are red, or at least appear red.

A description is an abstract object, since it's made of propositions, so you're confirming the existence of at least one independent abstract object.

It’s not independent, though. You said yourself it’s made of propositions. We make propositions, descriptions, abstract objects, universals, and so they are forever dependent on the human mind. They might manifest as words but they will never manifest anywhere else.

Instead of defending abstract ideas not being real, how would you attack abstract ideas being real? What issues arise if we consider abstract ideas to be real?

They are without a referent, or at the most co-referential. Wherever they appear they can only prove to exist as products of the mind. How can a realist overcome such a deficit?

The above description of spin and electrons is full of universals and abstract objects. If you deny the existence of those properties, you have no real terms with which to explain what an electron is. "Electron" becomes a blank.

Descriptions are full of abstract objects and universals, certainly, but the contention for the nominalist is that abstract objects and universals do not exist independently of descriptions. And their inability to exist independent of the descriptions does not limit their usefulness in describing things that do. So the electron can be described in countless fashions, in abstract and concrete terms, never blank.

I don’t know. I’m not a physicist. I’m only saying that we’re speaking about electrons when defining their movements in mathematical terms, such as with “spin”.

But we already describe what an electron is. We’re speaking about an electron when defining its movements in mathematical terms. So I do not see what you mean.

My mistake. How is it, then, that if you rule out the existence of the properties of an object, you'll soon find that you have no words at all to describe reality?

Debates usually involve two or more competing ideas, not a series of questions and answers. So if you believe in the existence of properties then surely there is a reason why.

To rule out the existence of the properties of an object is not to rule out the utility of the words. I can still use the words to describe what’s real, in this case the electron.

I’m afraid it is not real in the way you say it is. Do you think the spin is real?

An electron spins. The spin needn't be abstracted into its own entity.

No, I would speak of the electron as real (assuming there is a referent) and spin as a predicate.

But can you really escape universals and abstract objects? When you separate the universe down to its tiniest parts, what do you call those parts?

They are useful for linguistic purposes, so one need not escape them. But in terms of metaphysics and ontology they are neither extant nor useful. I would not separate a universe down to it’s tiniest parts, for instance, because it presupposes a universe is it’s own particular. Particulars have parts but universals do not.

Platonic realism or any realism in regards to abstract ideas and universals.

Nominalism addresses the concept of existence better than realism does.

To see from where an ethical behavior arises we can just follow it backwards to its beginning. Much of it is visceral, I believe, biological. After all, every human action begins and ends there. In this case the conscience, born latent but forever developed, has the final word.

In this way the history of ethics is about recording the pangs and stresses of human interaction and prescribing a means to soothe them. For reasons of health a man must account for his passions as he navigates his inevitable and awkward proximity to others. How do I justify sentencing to death one man in order to save five men? The right behavior is that which invariably allows him to live with himself.

Not everyone is a friend or family member, though. Treating someone as a means to an end is just as perilous in business as it is in any social context, and one can form friendly relationships and treat people morally in business as they can anywhere else.

Trade has been occurring throughout human history. So the “transactional culture” is inherently human. Transactional conduct, therefor, is not inherently immoral on the grounds that it is “non-humanistic”. Rather, what is immoral is the way you treat it, how you speak of it, and your motives for doing so, in combination with your conduct towards others during the transaction.

Why is it that in a country of over 300 million people the same deep-state players keep appearing in seemingly disparate places? As reported by Matt Taibbi regarding the so-called “Twitter files”:

James Baker is the former general counsel of the FBI under James Comey. Baker was effectively forced out of the FBI due to his role in the Trump/Russia saga and has reportedly found himself under criminal investigation regarding leaks. For whatever reason he was hired by Twitter, and it was he who vetted the first batch of “Twitter Files” without the knowledge of new management. Given the incestuous relationship between social media companies and the "intelligence community", and the growing litany of examples of their disinfo campaigns, it's no wonder the statist fears over Musk's free speech absolutism ring the loudest. They are losing their grip on public opinion.

The market isn’t so free when governments pressure companies to adopt policies of censorship. French and German law, for example, demands social media companies censor hate speech and misinformation within a certain time frame or face massive fines. The UK and EU are introducing regulations to protect users from “harmful content”, or in order to “establish a level playing field” economically. The Senate/Big Tech hearings on “misinformation” testifies that American politicians are consistently threatening tech executives to interfere in the speech on their platforms, lest their business models are ruined. Far from a free market, all of this is government pressure and intervention.

https://www.aclu.org/news/privacy-technology/government-trying-influence-speech-social-media-how

https://www.npr.org/2021/03/25/981203566/5-takeaways-from-big-techs-misinformation-hearing

https://thehill.com/policy/technology/563470-administration-puts-new-pressure-on-social-media-to-curb-covid-19/amp/

https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/digital-services-act-package

https://techcrunch.com/2022/11/21/elon-musk-twitter-netzdg-test/amp/

I’m not sure how it is possible that you cannot be ultimately responsible for the way you are in any respect at all, given that so much of oneself (genes, body, hormones, and so on) is responsible for “the way you are”.

That is, if my racist rants result in Musk taking down my posts, how is that a more free system than the government taking down my posts?

It’s Musk’s property, thus he has the freedom to determine what can and can’t be said in his platform. If the government steps in and tells him he can never censor a post, for example, they will be denying his freedoms. The fact that freedoms overlap in such a way is a core problem for rights advocates. Corporate censorship, however, is just as wrong as government censorship, and for the same reasons.

The problem is that any regime that takes upon itself the task of determining truth has failed. We’d probably all still believe in the Vegetable Lamb of Tartary or that the sun revolves around the earth if Truth™️ was never undermined by other voices.

The freedom to say anything, like the freedom to pass gas or salivate, is a condition of life, something that we do by virtue of being a human. This includes telling lies, uttering falsities, and so on. In limiting that right to a governing body, we bestow the right to lie on that governing body, while attempting to deny it to everyone else. This is far more conducive to lies than it is to truth, in my opinion.

You’re right; what Musk is doing is not free speech. It’s simply a revision of Twitter’s terms and conditions and standards of moderation, which invariably run contrary to free speech.

The “shouting fire in a crowded theater” canard has somehow buried itself in the American consciousness, for whatever reason, despite the law being unequivocal on it for over half a century. But it isn’t immanent danger—the “clear and present danger” test was overturned—it’s immanent lawless action. The timeframe between the incitement and the lawless action is important. Of course Kanye’s tweet is not a call for immanent lawless action, nor was it intended to be, and Musk is way off the mark.

I’ve noticed a tendency for Americans to equivocate between the 1st amendment on the one hand and free speech in the other. The 1st amendment isn’t free speech and in fact has little to do with it. It’s only a threadbare guarantee that government will not violate free speech and other basic human rights, which of course it violates on numerous occasions. It doesn’t offer any insight into the principle at all, why it is required, or why people ought not to censor another.

A far superior and more absolutist position is held by the UN declaration of human rights, Article 19, which no government would dare to adopt, even despite its tremendous influence.

Truth cannot be established, because it has historically not been sufficiently valued, has not been protected, and rewarded, but has been betrayed and actively persecuted. And that is why I am troubling to make truth the centre of my interventions here. The philosophy of freedom without qualification which I rather suspect you are still promoting, is the political philosophy that has produced a society in which lies flow so freely that the truth cannot be discerned.

America has valued freedom above truth, and is paying the price. Unfortunately, they have also exported their distorted values around the world. And if you cannot see the connection with the topic, I cannot think how to explain it to you any clearer.

I’m not so sure about that. Posterity tends to work out the truth even after efforts to censor it occurs. The Roman Inquisition did all it could to silence the heliocentric theory but their truth was eventually superseded by heresy.

That’s why any censorship used in the service of truth is really in the service of dogma. Freedom of speech is the only context in which proper trial and error can occur, and truth can finally work itself out. So if America exports mistrust in the institutions of power then so much the better, in my opinion.

On a close examination, would you assert that Santa alone exists as the sum total of descriptions that we have assigned to him? Such as the the man that delivers presents or exists on the North Pole with reindeer? Is Russell's theory of denoting entities really here at the gist of all Santa's descriptions?

Assuming that everything exists, and to discover the nature of a thing we must describe what it exists as, I wager there are some extant particulars that we could gather into an aggregate and call that “Santa”. However it would never resemble how we imagined Santa to be.

The language regarding Santa Clause exists but he is unable to manifest beyond it. That’s the difficulty with all abstract concepts and universals. There is no referent. The word refers to other words, or to people who are not Santa. Language exists, certainly, but Santa does not.

Twitter has banned Ye for incitement to violence, which is the common death knell for free speech. So much for free speech absolutism.

https://twitter.com/time/status/1598573430919544832?s=46&t=ZI09DXDb3lbX37sxfJE48g

Censoring someone certainly reduces his reach. That’s why it is a double evil because not only is his free speech violated but so is our right to hear it. Either way, the hatred of what Trump says and the efforts to silence him indicates that he also influences people in an opposite direction, towards committing censorship and other violations of basic human rights.

I agree with what you say about morals. Simple morals and manners ought to be enough to refrain one from being disrespectful, mean, lying, bigotry, encouraging immoral behavior etc.. But we’ve tried developing moral behavior with coercion, censorship, ostracism and the results are nothing to be proud of.

It can be said he is fueling those with conspiratorial mindsets, just not causing them.

It can be, and often is said, that people can “fuel” human activity with their expressions, but I find the analogy to be somewhat false. Personally I do not think Elon’s expressions (nor anyone’s) has the kind of force to manipulate matter and people in such ways, like oxygen fuelling a fire. People will receive the information and run with it however they will, and according to their own will and volition. That’s why he who dispenses such information cannot be blamed for how others act upon it.